CEOs Of Top 100 Companies Of India – How Many Did An MBA?

CEOs Of Top 100 Companies Of India – How Many Did An MBA?

The Fortune 500 Companies is an annual list of the top 500 companies, collated and published by the Fortune magazine since 1955. It is a matter of great pride for an organization to feature in this list.

While the names of the publicly and privately held companies in the original list consist of global & Indian brands, Fortune magazine also releases a list of the top 500 Indian companies annually.

Here, I have compiled a list of the top 100 from Fortune’s List of 2017, along with the names of their business heads as well as their professional qualifications.

This report will attempt to gauge the general trends followed around the qualifications and the alma mater of these men and women.

By the end of this report, we will be able to answer the following questions:

Which B-Schools/graduate colleges produce the maximum number of C-suite Executives in the top-100 companies of India.

How many business leaders haven’t actually pursued a post-graduation and/or graduation course?

What percentage of Executives prefer to do their MBA from abroad than from Indian management institutes?

Do you need to be a post-graduate to reach the top?

As illustrated below, 37% of business leaders do not have an MBA or any other form of post-graduation degree. Out of this, Mr Rajesh Mehta of Rajesh Exports has not even pursued an undergraduate degree and is worth $2.6 Billion as of 2017, making him the 61st richest man in the world. Mr Mukesh Ambani, the world’s 18th richest man, is only a graduate. 33 Business leaders in this list do not possess a post-graduation degree.

Therefore, out of every 5 business leaders, 2 do not have an MBA or a post-graduation qualification. Therefore it is clear that an MBA/post-graduation is not necessary to rise to the top.

How many business leaders have done their MBAs locally?

Out of the list of business leaders of the top 100 Indian companies, 21 out of 89 CEOs have done an MBA locally and the same number of professionals have pursued their management degrees from foreign institutes. The latter consists of institutes such as the Wharton School of Management, Harvard Business School, Cornell University, London Business School etc. The most preferred programme pursued abroad, apart from an MBA, is the Advanced Management Programme at the Harvard Business School.

It must be noted that 17 of the 89* business leaders in this list have pursued post-graduation degrees other than an MBA.

*(The data for 11 CEOs was not available)

Which Indian B-Schools have maximum representation across the top 100 Indian companies?

Unsurprisingly, the holy trinity of IIMs makes up over 50% of the 10 Indian B-Schools’ alumni. JBIMS is at 3rd place in terms of representation, thereby upholding its reputation as the CEO factory of India. Up there with the top-10 B-Schools are management institutes such as TAPMI, SIBM Pune, and IMI New Delhi.

Apart from B-Schools, it must also be noted that 9% of these business leaders are also members of the Insitute of Chartered Accountants of India. 2 of the 100 individuals are also lateral entries from the Indian Administrative Services.

Most of these business leaders hail from some of the most prestigious undergraduate institutes in India and abroad such as IITs, NITs, BITS, St. Stephen’s, SRCC, etc. The IITs lead the pack, the alumni of which account for 14 of the 91* business leaders featuring in this list, followed by NITs (6) and BITS (5).

*(The data for 9 CEOs was not available)

Here is the list of CEOs of the top-100 companies in India, according to Fortune magazine’s list for the year 2017:

(Wherever all three columns contain “NA”, it implies that the company is without a CEO due to arrests and criminal investigation against CEOs, sudden resignation, or re-structuring of management)

Company

Name of CEO/Chairman/MD

MBA/Post-Graduation

Graduation College

Indian Oil Corporation

Sanjiv Singh

NA

IIT Roorkee

Reliance Industries

Mukesh Ambani

Stanford (Discontinued)

UDCT

State Bank of India

Arijit Basu

JBIMS Mumbai

IIT Delhi

Tata Motors

Guenter Butschek

NA

Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University

Rajesh Exports

Rajesh Mehta

NA

NA

Bharat Petroleum

D. Rajkumar

IIM Bangalore

IIT Madras

Hindustan Petroleum

Mukesh Kumar Surana

Data Unavailable

Data Unavailable

Oil & Natural Gas Corporation

Shashi Shanker

IGNOU

ISM Dhanbad

Coal India

Sutirtha Bhattacharya

Indian Administrative Services

Presidency College, Kolkata

Tata Consultancy Services

Rajesh Gopinathan

IIM Ahmedabad

NIT Trichy

Tata Steel

T.V. Narendran

IIM Calcutta

NIT Trichy

ICICI Bank

Chanda Kochhar

JBIMS Mumbai

Jai Hind College, ICAI

Larsen & Toubro

S.N. Subrahmanyan

SIBM Pune

Kurukshetra University

Hindalco Industries

Satish Pai

NA

IIT Madras

Bharti Airtel

Gopal Vittal

IIM Calcutta

Madras Christian College

HDFC Bank

Aditya Puri

ICAI

Panjab University

Mahindra & Mahindra

Anand Mahindra

Harvard Business School

Lawrence School, Lovedale

NTPC

Gurdeep Singh

IIM Ahmedabad

Data Unavailable

Vedanta

Kuldip Kumar Kaura

London Business School

BITS, Pilani

Infosys

Salil Parekh

Cornell University

IIT Bombay

Maruti Suzuki India

Kenichi Ayukawa

NA

Osaka University

Essar Oil

Lalit Kumar Gupta

NA

Jiwaji University, Gwalior

HDFC

Keki Mistry

ICAI

Mumbai University

Wipro

Abidali Neemuchwala

IIT Bombay

NIT Raipur

Axis Bank

Shikha Sharma

IIM Ahmedabad

LSR

JSW Steel

Sajjan Jindal

NA

MS Ramaiah Institute of Technology

Punjab National Bank

Sunil Mehta

Wharton School of Management

CAIIB

Bank of Baroda

P.S. Jayakumar

XLRI Jamshedpur

Madras University

GAIL (India)

B.C. Tripathi

NA

MNNIT Allahabad

Canara Bank

Rakesh Sharma

IGNOU

Chaudhary Charan Singh University

HCL Technologies

C Vijaykumar

NA

PSG College of Technology

Bank of India

Dinabandhu Mohapatra

Data Unavailable

Data Unavailable

MRPL

M. Venkatesh

NA

MIT, Manipal

Steel Authority of India

P.K. Singh

NA

IIT Roorkee

ITC Limited

Sanjiv Puri

Wharton School of Management

IIT Kanpur

Vodafone India

Sunil Sood

IIM Calcutta, Harvard Business School

IIT Delhi

Motherson Sumi Systems

Vivek Chaand Sehgal

NA

Delhi University

Union Bank of India

Rakiran Rai Gundaydka

NA

University of Agricultural Sciences

Grasim Industries

Dilip Gaur

Harvard Business School

Data Unavailable

Idea Cellular

Himanshu Kapania

IIM Bangalore

BITS, Mesra

Kotak Mahindra Bank

Uday Suresh Kotak

JBIMS Mumbai

Sydenham College

Hindustan Unilever

Sanjiv Mehta

Harvard Business School

Data Unavailable

Sun Pharmaceuticals

Dilip Shanghvi

NA

Bhawanipur Education Society, University of Calcutta

IDBI Bank

Balasubramanyam Sriram

AIMA,St. Stephen’s College

Data Unavailable

General Insurance Corporation of India

Alice G. Vaidyan

Harvard Business School

Kerala University

Tech Mahindra

C.P. Gurnani

NA

NIT, Rourkela

Reliance Infrastructure

Lalit Jalan

Wharton School of Management

IIT Kanpur

Hero MotoCorp

Pawan Munjal

NA

NIT Kurukshetra

Bharat Heavy Electricals

Atul Sobti

IMI New Delhi, IIM Ahmedabad

Data Unavailable

Tata Power Company

Praveer Sinha

NLSI, IIT Delhi

IIT Delhi

Chennai Petroleum Corporation Limited

S.N. Pandey

Data Unavailable

Data Unavailable

Central Bank of India

Rajeev Rishi

NA

Panjab University

Power Finance Corporation

Rajeev Sharma

FMS Delhi

IIT Roorkee

Power Grid Corporation of India

I.S. Jha

NA

NIT Jamshedpur

Syndicate Bank

Melwyn Oswald Rego

SIBM Pune

Data Unavailable

UltraTech Cement

KK Maheshwari

ICAI

University of Mumbai

Petronet LNG

Prabhat Singh

NA

IIT Kanpur

Rural Electrification Corp.

Dr. P.V. Ramesh

Indian Administrative Services

Christian Medical College & Hospital

Jet Airways (India)

Vinay Dube

University of North Carolina

Knox College, IIinois

Bajaj Finserv

Sanjiv Bajaj

Harvard Business School

University of Pune

Ashok Leyland

Vinod Kumar Dasari

J.L. Kellogg School of Management

University of Louisville

Reliance Communications

Gurdeep Singh

NA

BITS, Pilani

Bajaj Auto

Rajiv Bajaj

University of Warwick, UK

College of Engineering, Pune

Adani Enterprises

Vinay Prakash

NA

Institute of Engineering & Technology

Indian Overseas Bank

R. Subramania Kumar

Data Unavailable

Data Unavailable

IFFCO

U.S. Awasthi

University of Agricultural Sciences

IIT(BHU)

Corporation Bank

Jai Kumar Garg

Data Unavailable

Data Unavailable

NABARD

Harsh Kumar Bhanwala

IIM Ahmedabad

Data Unavailable

New India Assurance Co. Ltd.

Gopalan Srinivasan

NA

University of Madras

Jindal Steel & Power

N.A. Ansari

Wharton School of Management, INSEAD

Aligarh Muslim University

Andhra Bank

NA

NA

NA

Oriental Bank of Commerce

Mukesh Kumar Jain

Delhi School of Economics

Data Unavailable

Ambuja Cements

Ajay A. Kapur

The Wharton School

St. Xavier’s, Mumbai

Yes Bank

Rana Kapoor

Rutgers University

SRCC, Delhi University

Allahabad Bank

Data Unavailable

Data Unavailable

Data Unavailable

Tata Communications

Vinod Anand Kumar

NA

BITS, Pilani

Interglobe Aviation (IndiGo)

Rahul Bhatia

NA

University of Waterloo

IndusInd Bank

Romesh Sobti

Data Unavailable

Data Unavailable

UCO Bank

Ravi Krishan Takkar

NIBM Pune

SRCC, Delhi University

Future Retail

Kishore Biyani

NA

HR College, Mumbai

Asian Paints

K.B.S. Anand

IIM Calcutta

IIT Bombay

Indian Bank

Kishor Kharat

Data Unavailable

Data Unavailable

Lupin

Vinita D. Gupta

Kellogg School of Management

University of Mumbai

Reliance Capital

Jai Anmol Ambani

NA

Warwick Business School, UK

UPL

Jaidev Shroff

NA

Mumbai University

Gitanjali Gems

NA

NA

NA

PTC India

Ashok Haldia

Data Unavailable

Data Unavailable

Aurobindo Pharma

N. Govindarajan

IIT Bombay

Annamalai University

Max Financial Services

Mohit Talwar

Oberoi School

St. Stephen’s College

Cipla

Umang Vohra

TAPMI, Manipal

MSRIT, Bangalore

Dr Reddy’s Laboratories

G.V. Prasad

Purdue University

Alagappa College of Technology

CESC

Aniruddha Basu

NA

Aniruddha Basu

Bhushan Steel

Neeraj Singal

NA

Panjab University

EID Parry (India)

S. Suresh

Data Unavailable

Data Unavailable

Siemens

Sunil Mathur

NA

ICAI

Citibank

Pramit Jhaveri

Simon Business School, Rochester

Sydenham College

LIC Housing Finance

Vinay Sah

Lucknow University

Data Unavailable

Vijaya Bank

R.A. Sankara Narayanan

Data Unavailable

Data Unavailable

MRF

Rahul Mammen

University of Michigan Business School

St. Stephen’s College

Jaiprakash Associates

Manoj Gaur

NA

BITS, Pilani

The limitation of this report are:

The complete educational qualification and data for 20 business leaders was not available via secondary research. This reduces the sample-set from:

100 companies to 89 companies in the column titled “MBA/Post-graduation”, since data for 11 business leaders was not available.

100 companies to 91 companies in the column titled “Graduation Institute”, since data for 9 business leaders was not available.

The undergraduate stream cannot be ascertained accurately with the data available online, so the extent of the influence of a person’s graduation stream cannot be determined.

I will also be making a list of the top start-up CEOs of the country and their educational qualifications.

If you have any suggestions to improve this report, let me know in the comments below.

I agree. While making this, that’s the first thought that occurred. But unfortunately its very difficult to determine this for a lot of CEOs. Distant cousins, or family ties etc. may be responsible for them getting the position. But since it cannot be determined, I have just assumed that there is no nepotism.